G4S Olympics fiasco costs £50m

The security firm G4S has announced it lost £50m after failing to supply sufficient guards for the Olympics. The company revealed it made a profit of £236m in the six months to the end of June - a period not including the Games.

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Nick Buckles, chief executive of G4S, said the security firm will "continue to play a major role in this sector" despite the failure to deliver its Olympic contract.

G4S is conducting an internal review after its failure to provide all of the 10,400 contracted guards for London 2012 forced the Government to step in with military personnel.

The overall business has performed well in achieving a similar underlying profit as the first half of last year despite economic challenges, particularly in Europe, and weakness in the US government market.

Underlying organic growth in the first half has improved to over 5% overall driven by a strong performance in developing markets which grew by over 10%.

We continue to see good opportunities from outsourcing around the world particularly from governments looking to improve quality of services and reduce costs and we believe that, with our long-term track record, we will continue to play a major role in this sector.

The breadth of our portfolio in 125 countries continues to present many new growth opportunities. Our market leading businesses, broad customer base and £3.8bn per annum contract pipeline give us confidence in the outlook for the Group.

The chief executive of G4S Nick Buckles said he was "deeply disappointed" with the security firm's failure to fulfil its Olympics contract, according to Sky News.

We are deeply disappointed that we had significant issues with the London 2012 Olympics contract and are very grateful to the military and the police for their support in helping us to deliver a safe and secure games.